Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I

By George K. Williams

This study measures wartime claims against actual results of the British bombing campaign against Germany in the Great War. Components of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted bombing raids between July 1916 and the Armistice. Specifically, Number 3 Wing (RNAS), 41 Wing of Eighth Brigade (RFC), and the Independent Force (IF) bombed German targets from bases in France. Lessons supposedly gleaned from these campaigns heavily influenced British military aviation, underpinning RAF doctrine up to and into the Second World War.
Fundamental discrepancies exist, however, between the official verdict and the first-hand evidence of bombing results gathered by intelligence teams of the RAF and the US Air Service. Results of the British bombing efforts were demonstrably more modest, and costs in casualties and wastage far steeper, than previously acknowledged. A preoccupation with “moral effect” came to dominate the British view of their aerial offensives. Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard played a pivotal role in bringing this misperception to the forefront of public consciousness.

After the Armistice, the potential of strategic bombing was officially extolled to justify the RAF as an independent service. The Air Ministry’s final report must be evaluated as a partisan manifestation of this crusade and not as a definitive final assessment, as it has been mistakenly accepted previously.

This study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War. Its findings run directly counter to the generally held opinion. Natural limitations, technical shortfalls, and aircrews lacking proficiency acted in concert with German defenses to produce far less results than those claimed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tannenberg Publishing
• Release date: Nov 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781786250254

George K. Williams

See Book Description

Book preview

This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – [e-mail]

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1999 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

Biplanes And Bombsights: British Bombing In World War

George Kent Williams

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 11

Foreword 12

About the Author 13

Acknowledgments 14

Introduction 15

Chapter 1 — No. 3 Wing - Royal Naval Air Service -(July 1916—May 1917) 18

Chapter 2 — British Bombing Begins 42

Chapter 3 — 41st Wing - Royal Flying Corps - (June 1917–January 1918) 69

Chapter 4 — Eighth Brigade and Independent Force -(February–November 1918) 112

Chapter 5 — Eighth Brigade and Independent Force Operations 154

Chapter 6 — Postwar Assessments 191

APPENDIX 214

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 233

Bibliography 234

Manuscript Collections 234

Public Records and Documents, Unpublished 234

Published 235

Books 235

Articles 240

Unpublished 241

Foreword

This study measures wartime claims against actual results of the British bombing campaign against Germany in the Great War. Components of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted bombing raids between July 1916 and the Armistice. Specifically, Number 3 Wing (RNAS), 41 Wing of Eighth Brigade (RFC), and the Independent Force (IF) bombed German targets from bases in France. Lessons supposedly gleaned from these campaigns heavily influenced British military aviation, underpinning RAF doctrine up to and into the Second World War.

Fundamental discrepancies exist, however, between the official verdict and the first-hand evidence of bombing results gathered by intelligence teams of the RAF and the US Air Service. Results of the British bombing efforts were demonstrably more modest, and costs in casualties and wastage far steeper, than previously acknowledged. A preoccupation with moral effect came to dominate the British view of their aerial offensives. Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard played a pivotal role in bringing this misperception to the forefront of public consciousness.

After the Armistice, the potential of strategic bombing was officially extolled to justify the RAF as an independent service. The Air Ministry’s final report must be evaluated as a partisan manifestation of this crusade and not as a definitive final assessment, as it has been mistakenly accepted previously.

This study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War. Its findings run directly counter to the generally held opinion. Natural limitations, technical shortfalls, and aircrews lacking proficiency acted in concert with German defenses to produce far less results than those claimed.

Mention must be made here of the excellent appendix that concludes this study of British bombing efforts in the Great War. Prepared by Steve Suddaby, it presents a compact yet comprehensive view of British bombing raids against German targets during World War One. Both the author and Air University Press are indebted to Mr. Suddaby for his fine contribution to this treatise.

George K. Williams

About the Author

George K. Williams was born on 30 March 1944 in Lamar, Colorado. He graduated from Lamar High School in 1962 and entered the US Military Academy at West Point in 1964, graduating in June 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He earned a Master of Arts in US Intellectual History from Cornell University in 1973 and a PhD in Modem History from Oxford University, England, in 1988.

Colonel Williams was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army upon graduation from West Point in 1968. Following graduation, he attended US Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He later completed the Armor Officer course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and the Advanced Jumpmaster course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

From August 1968 to August 1969, Colonel Williams was a platoon leader with 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 82d Airborne Division, at Fort Bragg. From August 1969 to August 1970, he was a platoon leader and company commander with 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, I Corps, in South Vietnam. Upon returning to the United States, Colonel Williams completed the Armor Officer advanced course at Fort Knox and attended Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. From August 1973 to July 1975, he served as instructor of English at the US Military Academy.

Colonel Williams was an exchange officer and assistant professor of English and Fine Arts at the US Air Force Academy from August 1975 to July 1976. He then returned to the US Military Academy and served as assistant professor and course director in the English Department until August 1977, when he completed an interservice transfer to the US Air Force and entered Air Weapons Controller training at Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), Florida. After graduation, he was assigned to 963d Airborne Warning and Control Squadron, 552d Airborne Warning and Control Wing, Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. From October 1977 to July 1981, he served as airborne weapons controller, senior director, and airborne battle staff member on the E-3A airborne warning and control system aircraft.

Colonel Williams entered Oxford University in August 1981 and completed his resident studies in July 1984. He was assigned as special assistant to the commander, Air Force Logistics Command, from August 1984 to August 1985. He then served as Deputy Air Force Historian in the USAF Office of History, Washington, D.C., until November 1996, when he was assigned as research fellow, National War College, National Defense University, Washington, D.C. He retired from active duty in June 1998.

Acknowledgments

Many fine people on both sides of the Atlantic encouraged and assisted in the convoluted development of this study. The sustained support of my family and the peerless example of Sir Michael Howard, decorated infantryman and Regius Professor of Modern History, have been particularly noteworthy and are gratefully acknowledged.

Introduction

In broad brush, this study balances wartime claims against actual results as determined after hostilities. It also documents the cost, in men and equipment, of the bombing offensive waged by 3 Wing, Royal Naval Air Service, and components of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force—specifically 41 Wing, Eighth Brigade, and Independent Force, between July 1916 and the Armistice. The study’s organization was based on the organizational scheme of Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland in their four-volume history of Bomber Command in World War II, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany.

Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard’s Independent Force, the major strategic force to undertake significant and protracted bombing operations in the Great War, levered into place the cornerstone of the post-war Royal Air Force and shaped its doctrine during the interwar years. It also conditioned domestic expectations concerning the offensive potential of aerial campaigns in any future conflict. The lessons supposedly gleaned from the Great War heavily influenced the progress of British military aviation during the 1920s and 1930s, underpinning RAF doctrines, expectations, and policies up to the initial phases of the Second World War. The subject thus deserves careful study in its own right.

Fundamental discrepancies between the materials and conclusions reported in the January 1920 Air Ministry’s classified evaluation of the Great War’s long-range bombing offensive on the one hand, and those contained in seven volumes of evidence gathered first-hand by RAF intelligence officers who surveyed German-occupied territory immediately after the Armistice on the other, prompted an initial interest in this aspect of military history. Data from seldom-consulted records of the bombing study conducted independently by the United States Air Service complicated these differences. Subsequent examinations of RAF, Air Ministry, and other official archives brought even more contradictions to light.

Opinion of British long-range bombing efficacy during the First World War has previously been unduly influenced by two factors: (1) the laudatory judgments rendered in the six-volume official history, The War in the Air, by Sir Walter Raleigh and H. A. Jones, and (2) a retrospective awareness of the Anglo-American combined bombing offensive. Compared to the scale and intensity of its successor, the 1917—18 bombing effort seems to shrink into insignificance, serving merely as a slight and inconclusive prelude.

Contributing further to this neglect has been the general unavailability of definitive materials that might refute or corroborate the enthusiastic assessments of bombing promulgated in The War in the Air. By default, the flawed conclusions of the official history have been accepted and echoed by many later studies. Even those investigators who have delved deeper have often been led astray, most notably by the Air Ministry’s classified report of January 1920, Results of Air Raids on Germany Carried Out by the 8th Brigade and Independent Force, R.A.F.

In point of fact, the results of the 1917—18 RFC and RAF bombing offensives were demonstrably far more modest—and costs in aircrew and aeroplanes far steeper—than previously acknowledged or estimated. When other pertinent information is compiled and used, it severely undercuts the traditional view. Inordinate personnel losses and equipment wastage must be attributed to the policy of unrelenting offensive action that characterized RFC and RAF activities during the period. It impacted negatively upon aircrew proficiency and replacement programs, and on the muddled concepts of employment under which bombing squadrons in the field found themselves. Weather conditions and technical deficiencies also exacted a heavy toll.

From the outset, a preoccupation with the moral effects versus material results of bombing characterized the British view. This stance was not, however, shared by any of their major allies. By mid-1918, when Trenchard assumed control of the Independent Force, this preoccupation had evolved into a widespread obsession. It affected not only target selection—it affected the manner in which the targets would be assaulted. After the war, the alleged moral effect of aerial bombardment became the predominant justification for the RAF. Trenchard, as wartime bomber commander and later as Chief of the Air Staff in the decade following 1919 (when histories were written and doctrines formulated), exerted a pivotal influence in this regard.

When Trenchard took over the IF in June 1918, his arrangements with Lord Weir, the Air Minister, were such that he could wage his bombing program quite independently of the Air Ministry and even the War Cabinet, guided only by his own prejudices and predilections. Further, his IF headquarters staff originated and disseminated all reports, summaries, and other returns detailing the results of his aerial offensive. This exclusive control meant that any assessment of success would have to depend largely upon documentation produced by those who had waged the bombing campaign.

In the lean years after the Armistice, strategic bombardment was extolled to justify the continued viability of the Royal Air Force as an independent third service. Trenchard strove to mold opinion and was overwhelmingly successful. Wartime encounters with Zeppelins or Gothas, and memories of the protracted attrition of the trenches, had predisposed domestic citizenry toward the arguments of Air Ministry; British society developed an exaggerated consensus of bombing’s potential.

The widely cited January 1920 Air Ministry evaluation of bombardment must be viewed as a partisan manifestation of an official crusade, not as a definitive final assessment. Point-by-point analysis and comparison of its assertions with those contained in the RAF field reports from which it was ostensibly derived, as well as those in the US Air Service bombing survey, lead one inescapably to this conclusion. The Air Ministry’s final report, exemplifying the bombing rationale unceasingly preached during and after the hostilities, illustrates the extent to which exaggerated notions and fears quickly permeated the body politic. A ruthless aerial counteroffensive appeared to offer the only realistic future hope for home defense. The 1923 recommendations of the Salisbury Committee, confirming the RAF as a coequal—and conceivably preeminent—fighting service, endorsed and enshrined this nearly universal misconception.

In sum, this study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War that runs directly counter to more generally held opinions. Natural constraints, technical limitations, and training shortfalls combined with the impact of enemy countermeasures to create a considerable disparity between the bombing results officially claimed and those actually produced. Conversely, personnel losses and aircraft wastage rates were demonstrably far greater and more operationally significant than hitherto realized or admitted.

Finally, the misrepresentations of the January 1920 Air Ministry report highlight the extent to which the potential of strategic bombardment was touted between the two wars to rationalize and guarantee the continued existence of the Royal Air Force as a separate service.

Had the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry critically analyzed their own files, they probably would have understood the restrictions that adverse weather, navigational precision, sighting accuracy, and the state of aircrew training and morale impose upon the conduct of any sustained campaign of long-range aerial bombardment. In fact, very little such institutional introspection occurred between the wars.

Chapter 1 — No. 3 Wing - Royal Naval Air Service -(July 1916—May 1917)

Any study of British long-range bombing campaigns against Germany logically commences with the operations of No. 3 Naval Wing from its bases at Luxeuil and Ochey in France. Between July 1916 and April 1917, this Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) unit launched 18 raids into Germany and German-occupied territory. The average formation (15 Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft) dropped an average of 2,500 pounds of bombs per mission.{1} By October 1916, No. 3 Wing had proved able to cooperate effectively with French air forces in a series of aerial attacks against German iron works and blast furnaces in the Saar valley, where the British Admiralty believed steel for U-boats was being produced.{2} Yet, No. 3 Wing never realized more than half its proposed strength of one hundred machines.

Examining the plans and operations of No. 3 Naval Wing during its short career reveals the divergent conclusions of the Admiralty and the War Office concerning the relative importance of strategic bombing and the practical difficulties surrounding Anglo-French cooperation. These issues were to vex British policy makers throughout the war.

The RNAS had enjoyed a somewhat greater freedom of action and diversity of function than its army counterpart, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).{3} While the latter had developed into an air arm tied to ground elements, the RNAS independently probed the application of airpower. In large measure, the wartime increase in naval air strength beyond the immediate needs of purely maritime activities provided an operational surplus to encourage RNAS experimentation. Unfortunately, Britain’s aviation industry failed to satisfy the expansion programs of both services, thus compounding RFC suspicions as to the purity of RNAS motives and generating arguments about aircraft procurement between the War Office and the Admiralty.{4} On balance, the weight of advantage lay with the navy.

The doctrinal tradition that aircraft could best defend Britain by taking the offensive against the enemy had already been established during the early R.N.A.S. raids against Zeppelin bases. Finally, the interest of the Admiralty in the more indirect application of force, as opposed to the War Office’s increasing fixation with the titanic struggle on the Western Front, made the notion of striking at the German war industry with naval air forces seem particularly attractive.{5}Thus, the navy was able to take the lead in the first strategic bombing operations against Germany. The RNAS received little encouragement from its army counterpart, however, or from the British Expeditionary Force in France. In the spring of 1917, No. 3 Wing was disbanded to provide men and machines for the Royal Flying Corps.{6}

On 4 April 1916, the Admiralty’s director of Air Services prepared a memorandum, Defense Against Zeppelin Raids, for the War Cabinet. In this paper, Rear Adm C. L. Vaughn-Lee argued that a purely defensive policy did not adequately respond to the growing menace of airship raids on England; he asserted that such a limited approach cannot compare with a vigorous offensive. He emphasized that an organized and systematic attack on the enemy home front would restrict Zeppelin activities and have an immense moral effect on Germany itself. The naval staff officer concluded that Britain, by regaining the initiative, could then inflict both direct (material) damage and indirect (morale) casualties on her foe.

It now appears essential that a definite policy of Retaliation be laid down and carried into effect without any further delay. A sustained offensive will have a decided effect in weakening the enemy’s activities at the front by calls for defensive measures.{7}

The idea that strategic bombing could force a recall of German fighter units from the front to the homeland while damaging Germany’s industrial base was seductively attractive to Admiralty planners. This notion surfaced again in late 1917, in the Air Ministry, to justify the creation and expansion of No. 3 Wing’s successors.

The Admiralty Air Department had received considerable encouragement and support from the French, who also advocated bombing on a large scale. At the end of May 1916, the Admiralty received a formal request from the French naval attaché, who proposed a combined French/British bombing force to be based near Luxeuil, south of the British sector.{8}The French, who supplied engines to the British but had not yet developed a suitable daylight bombing machine themselves, emphasized that their participation would depend upon a continued supply of serviceable aircraft from the British. The Allies agreed not to initiate operations until sufficient force had been assembled, as ineffective attacks would merely alert the enemy and permit him to disperse production and deploy countermeasures.{9}

At an Anglo-French conference in London on 4 July 1916, the concept and details of the forthcoming aerial campaign were discussed at length.{10} By this time, the Admiralty had already dispatched a small advance party under Capt. W. L. Elder to arrange for the arrival of the British component. The Admiralty agreed that French bombardment groups should receive one-third of the Sopwith bombing machines delivered to Luxeuil and that the French would have operational control of the English squadrons committed to the joint offensive. These concessions further damaged Admiralty-War Office relations.{11}Apart from difficulties with their army colleagues, the navy had no misgivings about allowing the French air staff to select targets based on the French bombing plan.

This arrangement was perfectly acceptable to the Admiralty, who were able to secure the use of a French base which was within the operational range of the principal German industries. In any case, the French bombing plan was an eminently practical one and included many targets which the Navy wanted to attack.{12}A revision of the original French plan of 1915, this plan constituted the most comprehensive scheme for strategic bombardment of German military and industrial objectives available to British authorities at the time.

In formulating their plan, the French air staff first drew up a list of critical targets in Germany and determined their relative importance. They then ascertained whether each objective lay within range and whether it was vulnerable to aerial attack. Finally, they allocated an order of priority based on operational feasibility. They did not concern themselves with the force required to destroy or severely damage their targets.{13}

From this process, the French determined that the four most important enemy industrial complexes were located in four target areas: Mannheim-Ludwigshafen, Mainz, Cologne, and Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg. The first three were then discarded because the forces required to bomb these targets frequently and systematically were not available.

Since Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg emerged as the only tactically feasible target area, the French defined the main task of the long-range bombing force as annihilating the iron districts of Lorraine and Luxembourg. The blast furnaces there produced nearly half of Germany’s total steel output.{14} In bowing to present constraints, however, the French air staff did not lose sight of the future.

When the number of squadrillas will have increased, other objectives may be attacked. Then the industrial centres of MANHEIM-LUDWIGSHAVEN, on the Main (Frankfurt), of Cologne, and eventually Westphalia, may be classed as the most important objective, and it will be against the latter that the aerial forces of industrial destruction will be marshaled.{15}

This pragmatic evaluation conceded that, given the size of the force available at Luxeuil, the iron and steel industry in the Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg area was the only vulnerable objective of importance.

One must note that the French assessment considered material damage to enemy industry primarily; moral effect was unimportant, even as a secondary consequence of aerial attack. The Allied force was authorized to bomb selected towns and cities at greater distances only as specific reprisals in response to particular illegal actions by the enemy. The French dissociated these attacks from the strategic strikes against German blast furnaces.

Since the British Admiralty agreed in principle with the French proposals, they set about gathering machines and aircrews. Captain Elder had been sent to Luxeuil in early May 1916 to arrange for establishing the new unit.{16} Once sufficient long-range bombing machines became available, No. 3 Wing would be able to raid German munition works and industrial centers in the Saar valley.

A key region, the Saar valley was accessible to Allied units based in the vicinity of Luxeuil and Ochey. It was hoped that the wing would be equipped with 35 bombers (mainly Sopwith 1½ Strutters) and 20 escort aircraft (1½ Strutters configured as fighters) by 1 July 1916, with steady expansion to an eventual strength of 100 planes.{17}Later that fall, this planning estimate was revised upward—to a minimum of at least two hundred bombers, with two thousand high-horsepower engines on order to support future replacement.{18}

Some evidence exists that the Admiralty attempted to assemble this sizable aerial force without consulting the War Office.{19} In fact, however, these levels for No. 3 Wing were never realized—due largely to War Office opposition and the necessity to reinforce the Royal Flying Corps in support of the army on the Somme.

The army rested its case upon the questions of strategic priorities and unity of effort on the Western Front. It adhered to the principle that strategic bombing ranked far down the scale of aerial duties, well below such missions as aerial observation and adjustment of artillery fire. In a paper presented to the Air Board on 9 June 1916, Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard argued that this observation must be regarded as of primary importance to all bombing operations...efforts should be devoted to providing observation requirements in the first instance.{20}

Further, the War Office asserted that if scarce aviation assets were diverted from support of the army to participate in the Luxeuil sideshow, operations on the Western Front (which the War Office saw as the decisive theater) would be hampered in direct proportion. Sir Douglas Haig crystallized this position in his memorandum to the War Office on 1 November 1916.

Unless my requirements have first been adequately provided, the provision of flying machines by the naval authorities for work on the fronts of the French and Belgian armies in France amounts to very serious interference with the British Land Forces, and may compromise the success of my operations.{21}

Field Marshal Haig and General Trenchard opposed the scheme. They based their formidable dissent on the grounds that, since no surplus of aircraft existed, implementing the Admiralty plan would commit machines and crews needed elsewhere to an endeavor of secondary importance. This dissipation of resources, they said, would seriously hinder their primary effort.

The army’s demands for flying machines at the expense of No. 3 Wing began in late spring 1916 and continued until the Wing was disbanded a year later. In July 1916, when the Luxeuil force had been expected to consist of 55 serviceable bombing and escort aircraft, its actual strength had been whittled to fewer than a dozen machines and pilots. On one occasion, when Brig Gen Sir David Henderson, director-general of military aeronautics for the army, needed a minimum reinforcement of 72 planes but could only comb out 12 suitable machines from the home establishment, he sought aid from the RNAS. But, as the official history notes, ‘The Admiralty could only respond at the expense of their new bombing wing." By mid-September 1916, a total of 62 Sopwith two-seaters had been transferred to army squadrons.{22} These War Office requests significantly delayed expansion of the Luxeuil wing and reduced its strength below that necessary to conduct effective bombing.

Even after No. 3 Wing commenced active operations in the fall of 1916, it never recouped its logistical losses. It was able to expand somewhat, but on a more modest scale than originally calculated.{23} For the period of peak bombing activity, October 1916 to March 1917, an average of 43 pilots and 35 serviceable machines were available for operations. On 25 March 1917, the Admiralty acquiesced to War Office pressure and began to disband the Luxeuil force in order to reinforce the Royal Flying Corps.

By May, the remnants of No. 3 Wing had been transferred to No. 10 (Navy) Squadron for support of the armies in the British sector of the Western Front.{24} Even during its decline, the wing managed to fly four bombing missions, including one in April with the French, before its withdrawal from action.{25}

The Admiralty planners hoped the Luxeuil wing, in cooperation with the French, could damage enemy industrial centers and depress civilian morale sufficiently to affect German combat power on the Western Front. That hope never reached fruition.

The pre-eminence of long-range bombing was by no means universally acknowledged. The War Office in particular looked askance at the Admiralty’s preoccupation with what seemed to the soldiers to represent a peripheral mission for airpower. The army chiefs emphatically asserted that flying machines would best be employed in ground support, with squadrons tied to a subordinate, cooperative role. Additionally, the War Office argued there was no surplus of aircraft that could be committed to strategic bombardment. The struggling British aviation industry had yet to fulfill Field Marshal Haig’s requirements for tactical aviation and seemed unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future.

These two interservice issues were initially aggravated by the Admiralty’s attempt to organize and deploy the Luxeuil force without informing the War Office. The consequent uproar at the Air Board, combined with the necessity to reinforce the Royal Flying Corps for the Somme, kept No. 3 Wing well below its planned rate of expansion. Finally, No. 3 Wing was disbanded in order to bring RFC squadrons in the British sector up to strength. The high-level dissension over roles and priorities seriously affected the scale and pace of No. 3 Wing’s operations. Even if the Admiralty had been able to carry out its original program of expansion for the unit, the Luxeuil wing would probably not have developed into a decisive strategic weapon.

The Sopwith 1½ Strutter, when configured as a single-seat day bomber, took 24.6 minutes to reach 10,000 feet. Carrying a pilot and four 65-pound bombs, it cruised at 98.5 miles per hour. Its service ceiling was 13,000 feet and it could remain in the air for three and three-fourths hours.{26} These characteristics restricted its combat radius to less than 150 miles—assuming that its pilot prudently chose to climb to at least 10,000 feet before crossing the lines. The small size of its bombs made them useless unless a direct hit could be attained. As a fighter escort, the 1½ Strutter carried a pilot and an observer/gunner to a service ceiling slightly in excess of 15,000 feet. The aircrew, in addition to the stress induced by flying in marginal weather conditions and the threat of enemy countermeasures, faced a number of physiological obstacles as well. In their open cockpits, they spent extended periods well above the level at which the average healthy individual begins to suffer from oxygen deprivation (anoxia typically commences between 8,000 and 12,000 feet). They were also subjected to ambient temperatures that varied from plus 15 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, summer to winter.{27}

The ratio of serviceable machines to the number available stood at around 20 percent, and the average number of sorties per assigned aircraft stood at a very low 1.4 percent.{28} Even under ideal conditions of equipment and weather, No. 3 Wing would have found it extremely difficult to meet the ambitious goals set by its Admiralty advocates. The operational record of the Luxeuil force must be analyzed against this background.

Although Captain Elder’s newly created unit was anxious to attack enemy industrial targets in the Saar valley, it was not equipped with sufficient machines to launch a major strike until October 1916. In the interim, No. 3 Wing cooperated with six French aircraft in a raid on the benzine stores at Mulheim on 30 July. The